I'm your host, Jester. I've been an EVE Online player for about six years. One of my four mains is Ripard Teg, pictured at left. Sadly, I've succumbed to "bittervet" disease, but I'm wandering the New Eden landscape (and from time to time, the MMO landscape) in search of a cure.You can follow along, if you want...

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

FOTW: Endgame PvE Ishtars

I was asked this week about good high-end Gallente PvE ships, and I've been intending to replace last year's (sub-optimal) PvE Ishtar fit for quite some time. I've encountered much superior fits to that version for both armor and shield, so this is probably a good week to go ahead and trot them out. Depending on where your tanking skills are higher, you can go with either version:

Small 'Arup' I Remote Bulwark Reconstruction /OFFLINE
[empty high slot]
[empty high slot]
[empty high slot]
[empty high slot]

Medium Sentry Damage Augmentor I
Medium Sentry Damage Augmentor I

Both of these boats have about five minutes of cap endurance depending on skills. Both of them tank equally well (the armor version is slightly superior). For all intents and purposes, both of them do the same DPS. I haven't listed drones, but assuming HAC IV skills, you should load five each of Hobgoblins, Hammerheads, Ogres, and Gardes for most PvE work, trading to their Minmatar equivalent for Angel missioning/ratting. A good drone pilot will do about 540 DPS with Sentries, or about 475 with the Heavies. This is more than sufficient for any class of 0.0 rats and will handle L3 and L4 missions with ease. A HAC V pilot that takes this ship to 0.0 should fill the additional drone bay space gained with ECM drones.

T2 drones are obviously optimal, but you can use T1 versions while you're getting your skills up.

Both versions of this ship require somewhat extensive skills, and the higher your skills are, the more versatile you'll be able to make them. In particular, the shield version has a fair bit of CPU headroom remaining. You can fit small guns on a PvE Ishtar, but the four empty high slots also call out for salvagers. With max skills and the remote repper off-lined, you can fit three. I'd probably go with two salvagers and two 200mm AutoCannons instead. The ACs add another 50 or so DPS.

Tank in both cases is actually provided primarily by the Ishtar's small sig radius combined with the speed imparted by the afterburner. Still, both the armor and shield platforms tank at 250 DPS plus, which will be fine in both missions and in 0.0. The Ishtar is also quick enough and can apply Hobgoblin/Warrior DPS hard enough to quickly take out any scramming rats if you need to warp off. As I noted before, the armor version is a bit tankier and the tank is a bit more versatile: trade out the hardener for a rat-specific one, or you can go with a second EANM. You'll be tempted to trade the Medium Capacitor Battery for a third Cap Recharger. Don't. Doing so will do really bad things to your cap reserves.

The new Tech2 Omnidirectional Tracking Links are quite a boon to the Ishtar! A lot of guys would try to wedge a second T1 version onto the ship, but as I previously said, I really don't find it all that necessary. And with the superior T2 version, this is even more true.

If you like, you can replace mods here and there with their faction versions for even better performance, but it probably isn't all that necessary unless you want to clear CPU for a particular high slot mod or something.

The one thing I got right in my previous Ishtar post was this:

Once you head for 0.0, there are a lot of advantages to ratting in a cruiser-size ship. The key advantage is the quick align-and-warp of a cruiser-size platform. Keep an eye on Local as you work, and if you see a neut or hostile come into system, just warp off to a friendly POS. As long as you're paying attention, you won't have any problems. And even if you do get tackled and killed, the Ishtar is a very inexpensive platform and very easy to replace, not only financially, but logistically. Packaged, you easily can fit this ship and all its fittings into a blockade runner. Try that with a ratting battleship or battle-cruiser...

Rat safe. :-)

All Fits of the Week are intended as general guidelines only. You may not have the skills needed for this exact fit. If you do not, feel free to adjust the fit to suit to meet your skills, including using meta 3 guns and "best named" defenses and e-war. Ships can also be adjusted to use faction or dead-space modules depending on the budget of the pilot flying it. Each FOTW is intended as a general guide to introduce you to concepts that will help you fit and to fly that particular type of ship more aggressively and well.

13 comments:

I've used a similar fit to your shield tanked version to afk-run L4's whilst actively running them on two other accounts (I know, it makes me sad too) and the fit is surprisingly efficient. One thing worth noting for L4 mission use is to fit a gun (anything, really) to draw aggression. Then you can tab out to something more fun/involved.

This sorta reminds me that at one point during my time in Provi (just before CVA's eviction) I was ratting in a shield-tanked Vexor! It was a slightly nervous process because a T1 cruiser is operating on the ragged edge in that scenario, but it does work and it is certainly cost-effective. But I digress ... 9-)

I like these fits, especially the addition of the tracking link. Nice thought there! Re: guns, especially if you're in the shield tanker that isn't so cap reliant, might I suggest pulse lasers? Up close, they're effective to add a bit of dps, and of course they don't use ammo (which benefits two ways - chewing up holdspace better used for salvage, and requiring regular replenishment).

Also, I don't know what your starting engagement range is in these ships, but if you're opening it in the Sentries' sweet spot, you might want to think about a Drone Augment in the highs.

Repair of damaged drones if you're not quick enough pulling them back if they draw aggro. Doesn't need to be on-line very often, leaving that CPU/grid free for whatever you want to put in those four empty highs.

On a similar fitted ishtar like the shield-one I used a small laser to grab aggro. Nowadays, with better skills, I got A passive shielded ishtar with either three 250mm rails (+100dps 40+km range) or a set of blasters (+200dps if they get within 3 km).

Now, when I want to, I can choose to go more active than get agro and make tea...

I submit these alternatives; they're the ones I use. Slightly less DPS, but very cap stable with twin repairers. The ratting one is fully stable with the aggro gun off, and I've seen it used to tank the citadel torps 10/10 escalations throw at you, not to mention it has all the lovely highslot accessories. The only thing it lacks is a mining laser to cause spawns while belt ratting.http://pastebin.com/3FdCvDqy

In a wormhole I end up using a similar setup to the shield tank, but with all large shield extenders save one magnetic scattering amplifier in the mids and load up my highs with 125mm rails. Since it takes a little more oomph to omni tank, I use purgers for rigs. It clears c2s in a very boring fashion, that requires no cap for its defense. The guns clear out frigates while the drones clean up anything bigger.

I've been pondering getting into soloing a C3, but I don't believe it can be done well enough on the Ishtar. The Gila though, set up in a similar fashion, picks up ~100dps from missiles and can get around 750 omni tank without cap. With tech II rigs it goes quite a bit higher.

The armor version would be significantly enhanced by a Republic Fleet 10MN AB. That alone will put you between 15 minutes and Cap Stable depending on skills. It also has a better velocity bonus. Granted, this will imbalance the price of the two fittings by at least 70M ISK...

The ishtar rocks, but it rocks especially when making best use of its high kin/therm resists. For that reason it is best for ratting and plexing in guristas or serpentis space.

I have recently rebuilt my ishtar for running losec 6/10 gurista plexes and in my design and testing I came to really appreciate triple omni IIs. Not only do your Gardes track cruisers and distant frigates even better than before, but third also takes the range out past 50km, which is where the guristas BS like to orbit. Magic.

Unfortunately sentry rigs and cloaks make the CPU very tight. Less faction is required if you have the luxury of not needing a cloak in your locale.

Requesting that you post a PVE fit for those terrible Gallente pilots that focused on hybrid turrets. (IE: me) My drone skills are on back burner while shield tanking trains because I just moved into a wormhole.

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